Identifying and validating criteria for the production of educational films and videos for elementary school students

The general purpose of the research was to identify and validate the criteria for the production of educational films and videos for elementary school students. For many years, film and video were only prepared and used in a limited way in some schools due to high costs and limited access. However, this limitation has been lifted to a great extent with the advancement of technology. Especially after the expansion of virtual education, most teachers and trainers started producing educational films and videos using mobile phones and digital cameras. One of the important challenges in this field was lack of standards and principles for preparing educational films and videos for students. Criteria that can specifically test the quality of this age group and be available to teachers and producers in combined and virtual training as a guide were presented here.

The present research was combined with a sequential exploratory design in terms of its practical purpose and method. In the qualitative part, the required data was extracted from the sources using comparative content analysis and then validated using the quantitative method. The statistical population of the qualitative section included articles, theses, and electronic and printed books available and related between 2000 and 2021. The corpus was formulated with a purposeful and criteria-based method, and the main themes were extracted and coded based on the Boudin and Quick model. In the quantitative part, 60 teachers and specialists were included in the sample purposefully. In order to collect data and analyze the findings in the qualitative dimension, content analysis and extraction of main, sub-themes, and indicators were used. Then, in addition to the self-review technique, two experts were invited to ensure the coding method.

Qualitative findings in the four dimensions of technical, artistic, content and educational design were: the technical dimension criteria: expressiveness and clarity of the speaker's voice, light quality, image resolution and film size, lack of stuttering of the speaker's words and the superiority of the speaker's voice level compared to the background. In the artistic dimension, the criteria were: suitable framing of the film according to the educational goal and visual understanding of the student, variety of shots according to the type of content, attracting and maintaining attention with special effects, appropriateness of stage and background design according to the type of content,the believability of the characters in the film is physical, gender, age, grooming and clothing. The content aspect of the criteria included: the scientific accuracy of the content, the relevance of the educational content to the main learning goal, the removal of irrelevant content, the up-to-dateness and validity of the content, avoiding bias in relation to gender, age, race, language or social class, and simplifying complex content. According to the details of the content, the dimension of educational design included the appropriateness of the speech speed of the text with the level of students' understanding, arousing the sense of curiosity by creating an exploratory situation, strengthening the motivation to study and learn by creating a challenging situation, creating pauses in the video to link the content with the student's previous learning, creating and pausing in the video to encourage interaction about what was presented, refraining from showing the presenter's face when presenting complex content, providing practical examples of the concept or educational skill, creating a pause during the presentation to create an opportunity to think and get the audience's comments, and creative note-taking to guess what to continue, the events of the movie, Also, the results of validation using structural equations and the general fit of GOF value for technical, artistic, content, and educational criteria were equal to 0.181, 0.233, and 0.296 respectively, so the goodness model had a strong and appropriate fit and could be generalized.

This study identified and validated criteria for producing electronic content (educational films and videos) specifically for elementary school students in four dimensions: technical, artistic, content, and instructional design. These criteria can serve as a guide for teachers and experts who produce their educational content in the form of films and videos for virtual and blended learning environments, taking an effective step quality and continuity of education.